Welcome back to Wonky Wednesday.  Each week I do a deep dive into the election and registration data that makes up the electoral landscape of our home, Onondaga County.  I hope by looking into this data we can glean that this everchanging county is not monolithic as once thought and competition for Democrats, and all registrations, can be found everywhere.  This week start my #Fliptheleg series looking at each of the 17 Onondaga County Legislative races.  Today I look at Onondaga County Legislative seat #4.

In 2011 this seat was represented by newcomer Judy Tassone. In 2009 Judy Tassone won election to this seat winning by less than 200 votes to Dave Stott. In fact more people voted for Dave Stott on the Democratic line.   The GOP majority on the redistricting commission altered this district drastically giving it a signature  weird shape , the 2011 maps were famous for.  In an effort to keep this district in GOP hands they removed the portion from Clay that was more Democratic and snaked it around Onondaga Lake to put more GOP votes into the district.  They also portioned a small chuck of the City of Syracuse to dilute the Democratic votes in the city.  This brought Tassone enough votes to survive re-election in 2011, though it was only by 50 votes.  However the motive was clear, fight the demographic changes happening in Salina by adding more conservative Geddes to the mix.

Despite the redistricting effort, Demographic change continues.  OCL 4 has a moderate Democratic enrollment advantage with 36% of registered voters Democrat and 28% are Republican and 28% non-enrolled.  In fact the last two years the non-enrolled has overtaken the GOP in the district.  Salina dominates the district making up 78% of the enrollment while Geddes has 13% and 9% of the district lives in the City of Syracuse.

The Demographic changes to this district were muted a bit by the addition of the Lakeview portion of Geddes.  That is until the suburban changes so common throughout Onondaga started in 2015.  Partially a reaction to Trump and partially an exodus of City residents OCL 4 Democrats showed remarkable rise from 2016 till today.  The GOP actually stayed stable during this time period but their lack of growth has led to third place in the district.  A tsunami of non-enrolled voters in 2020 for the Presidential race caused them to overtake the GOP and remain on top of them today.

The Salina portion dominates the district in voters and drives the enrollment for Democrats.  This follows a long trend of Salina as a whole becoming more Democratic. The Lakeview portion of Geddes continues to act as GOP stronghold muting the enrollment advantages for Democrats in Salina and Syracuse.  However OCL 4 is one of those districts that in a wave election or with the right candidate and an open seat tip Democratic as the GOP advantage in the shape of the district in 2011 has all but been erased.

As noted before Judy Tassone barely survived her re-election in 2011, but has had easier elections since then.  In 2013 and 2015 she easily handled her Democratic challengers. So much so the Democrats did not field a challenger in 2017.  In 2019 Kathy Zabinski ran a solid race against her.  In fact she came within a dozen votes on just the Democratic and GOP lines, however the third party designations brought Tassone over the top and Zabinski’s lack of a 2^nd line hurt her.  It should be noted this will be an open seat in 2021 as Tassone has not sought re-election and Zabinski is running for Town Supervisor.

With an open seat the importance of how this district reacts in other races comes to the forefront.  In 2019 this district gave a moderate advantage to McMahon, less than his win percentage overall in his County executive race.  Dell winning at 5% for County Clerk was about equal to her overall. Beadnell losing the district by less than a percentage point shows the elasticity of the district even in a low turnout year.  In 2020 the district performed even better for Democrats.  Biden winning the district by over 16% is surprising and the NYS Senate Democrats Mannion split OCL 4 however the district still voted nearly 8% for the Democrats combined.  Even Congressional totals in 2020 are a boon for Democrats.  ON the surface Dana Balter lost by a little over 3% points.  However there were enough votes on the WFP line for placeholder name gone awry she actually won this district.  This is one of the few suburban communities to not give Katko 50%.

After Judy Tassone decided not to seek re-election the GOP chose Colleen Gunnip, the current supervisor of Salina.  Gunnip avoided a primary for this seat as a well timed job opened up for her GOP opponent just days before having to declare her candidacy for office.  The Democratic nominee for County Legislature in the 4th district is Stephon Williams.  This is his first run for public office but has received national endorsements from Run For Something and looks to make a splash in this district.  He can be found on Facebook at facebook.com/StephonForChange, on Twitter at https://twitter.com/Stephon4change or on the web at https://stephonforchange.com/ .  Follow his campaign to learn how to help.

Welcome back to Wonky Wednesday.  Each week I do a deep dive into the election and registration data that makes up the electoral landscape of our home, Onondaga County.  I hope by looking into this data we can glean that this everchanging county is not monolithic as once thought and competition for Democrats, and all registrations, can be found everywhere.  This week start my #Fliptheleg series looking at each of the 17 Onondaga County Legislative races.  Today I look at Onondaga County Legislative seat #3.

In 2011 this seat was represented by ling term County Legislator William Meyer. The GOP majority on the redistricting commission barely altered this district.  They removed a small piece of the village of Minoa but basically kept this seat intact. While this district avoided the massive redraw that created the weird shapes our districts are in now, that is mainly because this district was already weirdly drawn.  Instead of staying inside the Town of Cicero it has dipped down into the northern portion of Manlius since 2000 when Manlius was a blood red town. This avoided having to encompass the village of North Syracuse, a more Democratic village and keeping that packed into another district.

OCL 3 has a moderate GOP.  34% of registered voters are Republican while 30% are Democrat and 28% non-enrolled.  This small advantage has kept the GOP in power in this district for as long as anyone can remember.  Cicero which makes up 88% of the district in terms of registered voters is one of the few large towns where GOP enrollment has been steady.  The small portion of Manlius in this district was once blood red but now has a small Democratic lean as the Town of Manlius has changed dramatically over time.

This district has been remarkably stable in terms of partisan enrollment.  Both the Democrats and GOP have gained in enrollment during and since the 2016 presidential election.  While Democrats have started to close the gap, it is by inches and not miles.  The Non-enrolled has closed the margin on both the Democrats and GOP but again also by only a few percentage points.  The interesting part of this district is there does seem to be a slide by the GOP since the last election and while Democrats have continued to rise.  This could be a reaction to the January 6^th insurrections or a movement out of the GOP by conservatives who more ally with Trump then their party.

The Cicero portion of the district not only dominates in overall population and that allows it to heavily influence the partisan lean of the district.  Not surprisingly the GOP dominates the Cicero portion of the district.  This overwhelms both in number and partisan advantage the Democratic plurality in the Manlius portion of the district.  The irony here is that the hopes of avoiding a more Democratic friendly portion of Cicero made 20 years ago has dived the district into a Democratic area and opened it up to a fresh faced challenger, Matt Johnson, from the Manlius portion of the district.

The representation of this district has been on a whirlwind since 2011.  In 2011 longtime OCL representative Bill Meyer faced a tough challenge from former Cicero Supervisor Joan Kessel.  After barely winning his re-election he took a county job from Joannie Mahoney to open up the seat in 2013 (practice described as “a tradition of appointing long-time county legislators to county jobs.” by Syracuse.com that is alive and well today.  Joannie Mahoney appointed Chet Dudzinski who lost a primary to Jim Corl who ran unopposed in 2013.  Jim Corl decided not to finish his term after finding employment as a law clerk for Onondaga Family Court.  Tim Burtis the deputy supervisor for Cicero was chosen to fill out the term and is the current legislator.  He barely survived his first election challenged by long time Elections Commissioner Ed Szczesniak (D).  Burtis first re-election in 2017 was not as close, despite a conservative party candidate splitting the vote.  In 2019 Burtis easily won re-election as the Democratic Candidate Gary Williams barely survived a challenge to his petitions and was unable to recover and mount a campaign. To show how insular this region is in GOP representation, Bill Meyer replaced Tim Burtis as deputy supervisor of Cicero in 2015 is now the supervisor for the Town of Cicero.

Unfortunately, the wild election results for the county legislature are not matched in this district with other races.  OCL 3 has consistently supported GOP candidates outside of the County Legislative race.  In 2019 the GOP had a clean sweep of the County races, though a small decrease for the County Comptroller race.  Democrats lost all three comparative races in 2020 as well.  Even Biden lost this district by over 4 points.  For a Democrat to be successful in this district they will have to build a coalition with the non-enrolled and convince them to go against their base ideologies to make a local choice.  However, we have seen in the past this district has shown signs of doing just that.

The Democratic nominee for County Legislature in the 3^rd district is Matt Johnson.  This is his first run for public office but has received national endorsements from Run For Something and has already outraised his GOP opponent since getting into the race.  He can be found on Facebook at facebook.com/MattForLegislator, on Twitter at twitter.com/matt4countyleg and on the web at www.votemattjohnson.com.  Follow his campaign to learn how to help.